CONTENTS

In vain I left the
house of
god
and came to earth. I am so wretched! Ohuaya, Ohuaya!

I wish I'd never been
born,
truly that I'd never come to earth. That's what I say. But what is
there to do? Do I have to live among the people? What then? Princes,
tell me! Aya. Ohuaya, Ohuaya!

Do I have to stand on
earth?
What is my destiny? My heart suffers. I am unfortunate. You were
hardly my friend here on earth, Life Giver. Ohuaya,
Ohuaya!

How to live among the
people?
Does He who sustains and lifts men have no discretion? Go, friends,
live in peace, pass your life in calm! While I have to live stooped,
with my head bent down when I am among the people. Ohuaya,
Ohuaya!

For this I cry -
Yeehuya!-
feeling desolate, abandoned among men on the earth. How do you decide
your heart - Yeehuya! - Life Giver? Already your anger is vanishing,
your compassion welling! Aya! I am at your side, God. Do you plan my
death? Ohuaya, Ohuaya!

Is it true we take
pleasure,
we
who live on earth? Is it certain that we live to enjoy ourselves on
earth? But we are all so filled with grief. Are bitterness and
anguish the destiny of the people of earth? Ohuaya,
Ohuaya!

But do not anguish, my
heart!
Recall nothing now. In truth it hardly gains compassion on this
earth. Truly you have come to increase bitterness at your side, next
to you, Oh Life Giver. Yyao yyahue auhuayye oo huiya.

I only look for, I
remember
my
friends. Perhaps they will come one more time, perhaps they will
return to life? Or only once do we perish, only one time here on
earth? If only our hearts did not suffer! next to, at your side, Life
Giver. Yyao yyahue auhuayye oo huiya.

Romances de los
Señores #36 (21r-22v)

(Composed when he was fleeing the king of
Azcapotzalco, either during his first flight in 1418, when he was 16,
or during his second flight, around 1426, when he was 24. This is the
earliest poem that we can date.

Begin the song in
pleasure,
singer, enjoy, give pleasure to all, even to Life Giver. Yyeo ayahui
ohuaya.

Delight, for Life
Giver
adorns
us. All the flower bracelets, your flowers, are dancing. Our songs
are strewn in this jewel house, this golden house. The Flower Tree
grow and shakes, already it scatters. The quetzal breathes honey, the
golden quéchol breathes honey. Ohuaya ohuaya.

You have transformed
into a
Flower Tree, you have emerged, you bend and scatter. You have
appeared before God's face as multi-colored flowers. Ohuaya
ohuaya.

Live here on earth,
blossom!
As
you move and shake, flowers fall. My flowers are eternal, my songs
are forever: I raise them: I, a singer. I scatter them, I spill them,
the flowers become gold: they are carried inside the golden place.
Ohuaya ohuyaya.

Flowers of raven,
flowers you
scatter, you let them fall in the house of flowers. Ohuaya
ohuyaya.

Ah, yes: I am happy, I
prince
NezahualCóyotl, gathering jewels, wide plumes of quetzal, I
contemplate the faces of jades: they are the princes! I gaze into the
faces of Eagles and Jaguars, and behold the faces of jades and
jewels! Ohuaya ohuyaya.

We will pass away. I,
NezahualCóyotl, say, Enjoy! Do we really live on earth? Ohuaya
ohuaya!

Not forever on earth,
only a
brief time here! Even jades fracture; even gold ruptures, even
quetzal plumes tear: Not forever on earth: only a brief time here!
Ohuaya ohuaya!

You pity man, you
watch him
with mercy! Only for the most brief moment is he next to you, at your
side! Ohuaya ohuyaya.

Precious as jade your
flowers
burst forth, Oh Life Giver. As fragrant flowers they are perfected,
as blue parrots they open their corolas. Only for the most brief
moment next to you, at your side! Ohuaya ohuyaya.

I begin to sing, I
elevate to
the heights the song for He By Whom All Live. Yayahue ohuaya
ohuaya.

The festive song has
arrived:
it comes to reach up to the Highest Arbiter. Oh lords, borrow
precious flowers! Ahuayya ohuaya ohuaya.

Already they are being
renewed:
how will I do it? With your branches I adorn myself, I will fly: I am
unfortunate, for that reason I cry. Ohuaya ohuaya.

A brief moment at Your
side,
Oh, You By Whom All Live. Truly You draw the destiny the man. Can You
hold him who feels himself without good fortune in the earth? Ohuaya
ohuaya.

With variegated
flowers
adorned
Your drum is erected, Oh, You By Whom All Live. With flowers, with
freshness - Ayahue! - You give pleasure to the princes. Huiya ohuaya!
A brief instant in this form is the house of the flowers of song.
Ohuaya ohuaya.

The beautiful yellow
corn
flowers open their corolas. Huiya! The warbling quetzal of He By Whom
All Live makes a jingling clamor. Yeehuaya! Flowers of gold open
their corolas. Aya! A brief moment in this form is the house of the
flowers of the song. Ohuaya ohuaya.

With colors of the
golden
bird,
with red-black and lucent red You decorate Your songs. With quetzal
feathers You ennoble Your friends, Eagle and Jaguars, You make them
valiant. Ohuaya ohuaya.

Who has the piety to
reach
above to where it ennobles one, to where it brings glory? Yehuaya!
Your friends Eagles and Jaguars, You make them valiant. Ohuaya
ohuaya.

Nezahualcoyotl (Hungry Coyote) was considered
by his peers to be the greatest poet of ancient Mexico. His
compositions had vast influence, stylistically and in content. Filled
with thought, symbol and myth, his poetry moved his people's culture
so deeply that after his death generations of poets to follow would
stand by the huehuétl drum and cry, "I am
Nezahualcoyotl, I am Hungry Coyote," and sing his poems and
keep them alive.

Nezahualcoyotl was not only a great lyric poet, but was
famed as an architect, engineer, city planner, reluctant warrior,
law-giver and philosopher. The cultural institutions he established
included a library of hieroglyphic books, a zoological
garden-arboretum, and a self-governing academy of scholars and poets.
He led his city-state out of foreign domination, and transformed it
into a wellspring of art and culture. The seventh ruler
(tlacatecuhtli) of Tezcoco, a large pueblo on the north shore of Lake
Tezcoco, ten miles across the water from the capital of the Aztecs,
Hungry Coyote promoted a renewal of Toltec learning, based on the
peaceful religion of Quetzalcóatl, at the very moment when the
Aztec cult of sacrifice was coming into ascendancy. All the
Nahuatl-speaking city-states in the Valley of Mexico looked to Hungry
Coyote's Tezcoco as the cultural center of their world.

The story is not a simple one and the chronicles of his life
themselves are contradictory. However, the spirit of paradox is
embedded in the soul of ancient Mexico.

The complex surfaces of many flower-songs (xochicuicatl) often
make them difficult to understand for many people in our culture. We
do not have ready categories for them. They require an effort. Yet
they contain many gems of universal lasting value, and offer great
rewards to those willing to make that effort.

The Nahuatl Language

Nahuatl is commonly known today as "Aztec." However, the
inhabitants of the city-state México-Tenochtitlán
called themselves "Mexicas" or "Tenochcas" and never "Aztecs," which
is a foreign appellation. Besides, Nahuatl was the language of much
more than just the Mexicas (and the Tezcocans): it was the lingua
franca of the entire Valley of México, comprising many
city-states, stemming back to the fabled Toltec city Tula and
probably to Teotihuacán.

Today Nahuatl-speaking people are still one of México's
largest Indigenous groups, numbering over one million people spread
over the central parts of the country. Most call themselves "Mexicas"
today. Nahuatl-speaking people are also now commonly called "Nahuas."

Modern Nahuatl is quite different from the language of Hungry
Coyote. The shape of the modern language was of course strongly
influenced by centuries of proximity to Spanish.

Selected
Bibliography

Sources and Translations

Most of the surviving Nahuatl songs can be found in two major
collections, "Romances de los señores de la Nueva
España" and "Cantares mexicanos." Both were compiled between
1560 and 1582. A few songs are duplicated in both the Romances and
the Cantares, attesting to their authenticity and popularity. Neither
manuscript has a compiler's name attached, though there is solid
evidence of the identities of both.

The Romances, containing 10 flower-songs attributed to
NezahualCóyotl (or 11, depending on how one counts), were
probably collected by Juan Bautista Pomar, a great-grandson of Hungry
Coyote. Although no scribe's name or date is on the only existing
Romances manuscript, that manuscript was discovered bound together
with Pomar's history of Tezcoco, "Geographical Relation of Tezcoco,"
dated 1582. The two manuscripts are of the same vintage. Pomar wrote
in his own language and for his own people, to conserve their
history, traditions and culture.

The Cantares Mexicanos, with 24 to 28 flower-songs attributed to
NezahualCóyotl, was probably collected by the Indigenous
informants of Fra Bernardino de Sahagún as part of his great
work known as the Florentine Codex.

Two more of Hungry Coyote's songs are found, in Spanish
translation, in "Historia chichimeca," a history written in Spanish
by Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, another descendant of Hungry Coyote and
surely an associate of Pomar. This book and "Relation of Tezcoco" are
the primary sources for Hungry Coyote's life and the history of his
city-state Tezcoco. More of this history and a paraphrase of a Hungry
Coyote poem have been passed down in "Monarquía Indiana,"
another contemporary book by Fray Juan de Torquemada. The sacred
hymns can be found in the Florentine Codex, "Historia
Tolteca-Chichimeca" and "Anales de Cuauhtinchan."